Wednesday 13 February 2013

ARE WE ALL GONNA DIE THIS WEEK? NOPE

As a follow up to my article last week called "ARE WE ALL GONNA DIE NEXT WEEK?", which talked about the close fly-by of asteroid 2012 DA14, here are some good news.

Are we gonna be toasted by a 150 feet asteroid zooming in at 26,000 miles per hour? Errr...nope. It's going to miss us by 17,000 miles. That is not as high as some of our satellites which orbit at around 34,000 miles but in astronomical terms, it's "fucking" close. In some astronomical labs, that is a technical term by the way.

So, if it's not gonna toasted us, we might as well enjoy the show. How can you watch this rock whizz by? Well, you can use a pair of binoculars or a telescope. You'll have to find out the time it will pass by and the area of space to look at while steadily moving the telescope to follow the thing.

Good thing our scientists here on Earth are very excited to watch this thing too. So they've all setup everything you need to catch this falling star. And you can do it in the comfort of your own home via the web. You can check it out here, it contains all the links you'll need plus they will update it when necessary.

Remember the fly-by will be on February 15th. If I'm not mistaken that would be in the Americas, so for you Pacific Rim people it would be the next morning.

If you feel that this post is funny, entertaining or informative, please do share with your network. Hopefully more people will be well informed and entertained.

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